Fence-ing

My next door neighbor is an elderly man whom my wife and I just love.  He’s a real great guy.  He loves to talk … about anything, really.  He spent time in the military as a paratrooper so some of his stories are about the follies of his youth.  Sometimes he talks about his family.  Most of the time though it’s the gossip du jour on what’s happening in the neighborhood.  Every neighborhood has one of these types of people, right?  They chat with anybody and everybody and love to share the rumors with anyone with an open ear.

During the winter while I’m out shoveling the snow from my sidewalk and driveway, I’ll take some time to do his as well.  He reciprocates in the summer by spending a few minutes to edge my lawn every couple of weeks.  We’ll also do small neighborly-type things for each other.  I’ll carry his 40 lb. dog food into the house for him after he’s been shopping.  He’ll loan some tools for some projects we might be doing around the house.  You get the idea.  We do little tit-for-tat service for each other.

About six months ago a new family moved into the house next door to him.  There are maybe four or five kids that live there and they can be pretty loud and bothersome at times.  The kids aren’t the most polite and have occasionally hit or thrown things at his dogs.  So when the weather got warm enough my neighbor decided he would put up a privacy fence to provide some security for his dogs, but also to keep from having to see them all the time.

It has been a process of a month or so.  Partly due to some unkind weather in the past weeks, but also because he’s been very methodical on how he wanted the fence to go up.  He planned and engineered it and when he was done I would help him with whatever he needed.  Well, this past week the fence went up.  We were so pleased at how the whole process went and how great it looks.  I wanted to share some of the pictures with you.

Enjoy your holiday weekend!

Paradigm shift

I read an article last week in my Men’s Health magazine that really changed the way I look at finding a new job.  It also affected they way I view my time while unemployed.  You can find the article here.

The main points of the article are to use your time to work on your fitness, say yes to community projects that come your way, avoid jumping at the first job offers, and enjoy your time by planning something big.

Now, to discuss how I have taken these lessons to heart. 

Health: A few years ago, I was rudely awoken to my poor fitness when my sister invited me to run the annual Detroit Turkey Trot 10K race on Thanksgiving Day.  I had run this race every year from age 9-17.  I could count on one hand, however, the number of times I had gone for a run since my High School Cross Country career ended.  Fortunately for me I was smart enough to realize that a 10K would be stretching it so I agreed to the 5K instead.  On the day of the race, I was utterly exhausted after 2K’s and my sister, who had never been much of a runner, blew me away.  I ended up finishing the 3.1 miles with a time of like 36 minutes.

I was embarrassed.  Ashamed, I committed to a new way of life.  To make a long story short, I got a membership to a gym and started getting in shape.  (I’ll definitely make my work out renaissance the topic for another day.)  Anyway, the point is that I had already changed my life prior to my unemployment.  The difference now though is that instead of cramming in 45-60 minutes in the morning, I can take as much time as I want on my workouts.  I can also do two workouts a day, if I see fit to do so.

Community:I have many passions in life.  It turns out, my community had an opportunity that combines two of them very nicely.  As a tee ball coach, I have resuscitated my love of teaching, and have joined it with my love of baseball.  A friend of mine has been a little league coach for a few years.  Shortly after my layoff I approached him to see if he needed any help with his team.  To my disappointment he said he had enough help.  However, he gave me the contact information for the director of the tee ball league who told me about a team that did not have a coach.  Of course I volunteered, and now the Harper Woods Comanches are my team of prodigies.

Job offers: Sadly, this has been an easy one to live up to.  Aside from a couple of recruiter interviews, the job search has been rather slow.  In the past week or two, things have heated up, but nothing that has been a true job offer.  Having said that, I have taken the attitude that I am in charge of my own destiny.  I am having the time of my life with my family and baseball team, and really enjoying the summer sabbatical.  Most important of all, I am getting to know who I am – what I like and what my strengths are.  I know that a job will come.  And when the time comes I will be make sure that the job is right for me.

Something big: Planning big things can be a bit challenging with a very limited budget, but I do have a couple vacation plans for the summer.  In mid-July I will be getting together with my parents and sisters and our families for a trip up to Mackinac Island in upper Michigan.  Also, Rachel and I will be celebrating our 10th wedding anniversary in August.  To fete our special occasion we are taking a road trip to Hilton Head Island in South Carolina to spend a week without the kids.  Just a quiet time on the beach by ourselves.  We are really looking forward to it.

In the end, the article from Men’s Health really started to spur a change within me.  I’ve experience a paradigm shift.  I’m happier and more accepting of my unemployment.  In fact, I embrace it and the challenges and growth opportunities it affords me.